Lunch counter section and other objects from the F. W. Woolworth Company store on Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina, now on display in the National Museum of American History. Gift of the F. W. Woolworth Corporation

In 1960, if you were an African American, you were not allowed to sit here--the lunch counter of the F. W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. Racial inequality pervaded American life. And throughout the South, a racist legal system known as "Jim Crow" segregated people by race in restrooms, hotels, restaurants, and most other public accommodations. On February 1, 1960, four African American students sat down at this counter and tried to order lunch. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond were all enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. Their "passive sit-down demand" began one of the first sustained sit-ins and ignited a youth-led movement to challenge injustice and racial inequality throughout the South. In

On the second day of the sit-in at the Woolworth's in Greensboro, Joseph McNeil and Franklin McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson. Courtesy of the News and Record of Greensboro

Greensboro, hundreds of students, civil rights organizations,churches, and members of the community joined in a six-month-long protest. They challenged the company's policy of racial discrimination by sitting at the lunch counter and, later, organizing an economic boycott of the store. Their defiance heightened many Americans' awareness of racial injustice and ultimately led to the desegregation of the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter on July 25, 1960.